This invention relates to a device enabling the hand cutting or marking of an ellipse and thereby enables one to hand-cut or mark ellipses.
The device is intended for use with photographic mounting board, paperboard, cardboard, paper, glass, and other materials, which are to be scribed or marked with an ellipse or from which an elliptical opening is to be cut out. The device is a simple, inexpensive hand-operated device which cooperates with a simple hand cutter or marker to cut a segment of the ellipse, preferably one quadrant at a time, thereby rotating one portion of the device relative to a fixed portion to enable cutting another quadrant, so that in four cuts a complete ellipse can be made.
In the past, oval cutters have been quite expensive, costing several hundred dollars and not always accurate even then. While these devices, and especially good ones such as those shown in my patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,845,676, issued Nov. 5, 1974, and 4,112,793, issued Sept. 12, 1978), are quite useful to large enterprises where a lot of oval cutting is to be done, there is also a need for an inexpensive device for cutting ovals in such materials as cardboard or glass or for marking ovals with a pencil or other marking or scribing device, which can be used by smaller businesses or where oval cuts are less often required. This device can be made quite inexpensively and can still perform an excellent job.
For example, the devices of the present invention can be used in conjunction with my cutting device shown in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 22,423, filed Mar. 21, 1979.
Thus, one object of the invention is to provide a relatively inexpensive but still accurate oval-cutting device.
Another object of the invention is to provide an oval-cutting device that can be used with a hand-operated mounting board cutter or a glass cutter.
Another object of the invention is to provide an oval-describing device which can be used to mark, scribe, or cut ovals in various materials.
Another object of the invention is to provide a simple device for cutting one quadrant of an ellipse at a time.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will appear from the following description of a preferred embodiment.